VIGNETTES ALONG THE PATH OF HURRICANE JEANNE

The Associated Press

Published Sunday, September 26, 2004

Some vignettes in the path of Hurricane Jeanne.

Shelters were welcoming thousands of displaced people Saturday ahead of Hurricane Jeanne.

In suburban Palm Beach Gardens, a Red Cross shelter at William T. Dwyer High School rapidly filled up as Hurricane Jeanne barreled toward the Florida coast. Guests ranged from the elderly to middle aged couples to families with small children.

Retiree Lois Wood of Jupiter stayed home for Hurricane Frances but decided not to take her chances with Jeanne. She left her husband at her house when he did not want to go to a shelter.

"My husband stayed home -- he's going to rough it," she said. "I decided that that I was going to come here. He thinks he's (safer) there -- he thought I was crazy to go to a place like this, absolutely nuts he said."

But Wood made friends quickly at the shelter.

"I'm surprised it's so nice and I'm sitting by two ladies that are very nice," she said.

One of her new friends was Sue Kuhn, who moved to Jupiter from Colorado in August and has been dealing with hurricanes ever since.

"The facility here and the people are wonderful, and they limit the number of people in the room, so you don't feel so crowded and you have people to talk to," Kuhn said.

It was the second time in three weeks that Kathy and Philip Thomas had abandoned their Jupiter home in the face of an oncoming storm. During Frances, the Thomases stayed with friends farther from the path of the storm.

"We were invited to stay again, but we just decided that we wanted to be closer to our home and be able to check on it quicker," Kathy Thomas said. "We brought something to sleep in and some carbohydrates because that's supposed to help with stress. And of course our books."

Nathan Mullins and Matt Harrell of Thayer, Mo., are tree removal specialists who came to Florida to work after Frances hit. They were evacuated from the island of Palm Beach.

"We didn't know they had a place like this," Harrell said of the shelter. "It's nice. We're thankful because we really didn't have anywhere else to go for this one."

"We've got a lot of work coming," said Mullins "but it's way to soon."

Mike Reilly, his wife and son were regretting their move nine months ago from Rockville Center, N.Y., as they ate lunch at a Wendy's in suburban Miami on Saturday during their second hurricane evacuation in three weeks.

The family from the inland Palm Beach County community of Wellington was happy to accept the delivery of a $2,000 John Deere generator on Friday, but Reilly told his neighbor that he was free to use the gas-powered machine because they were heading south to a hotel.

"You can't stick around: no electricity, no air, no shutters," said Annamarie Reilly. "We were here a week for Frances."

She feels ready to move back to New York, but her husband said, "We're going to give it some time."

Some creative business owners and homeowners painted signs on pieces of plywood they used to cover up their doors and windows. Among them:

"Ain't Scared"

"Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin."

"Fins, Margaritaville, ATM."

"Bring it on Frances," with wood apparently left over from the early September hurricane.